


Slugger

by Spineless



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 18:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8906659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spineless/pseuds/Spineless
Summary: Sherlock gets mugged.





	

**Author's Note:**

> all i want is sherlock to get beaten up :o( is that so much to ask

It’s a mugging. Just a mugging. No international heist of any sort, no drug cartel leader with a grudge, no violent suspect lashing out, no old client seeking revenge or psychotic ex-girlfriend––just a petty criminal with the upper hand and a baseball bat. Years of studying and training in various martial arts are apparently no match for sheer brute strength and impressive dumb luck. 

Just a mugging. Just a _stupid_ mugging. He’s barely ten blocks from the brownstone and it’s not even that late, hardly later than ten or… eleven, maybe? He’d check, but he was relieved of his watch in the struggle. His phone lays shattered somewhere in a gutter, not entirely unlike himself. At least he isn’t actually in a gutter, but some vague side street alleyway isn’t much better.

It’s disconcerting when he opens his eyes because he hadn’t realized he closed them. The grit of cement digs into the side of his face and the luscious stench of New York City fills his nostrils: gasoline, week-old rubbish rotting on the curb, the sweat and refuse of eight million people living and breathing together on an island half landfill to begin with––

He groans. He can’t help it; his head aches. Most of him aches. But he has to get up. 

Rising is a difficult process but he shuffles slowly upward. His palms smart when he presses them against the pavement, his left knee throbs and threatens to give when he puts weight on it, and his head does not take well to any change in elevation; he’s forced to lean heavily against a half-full dumpster until the world stops spinning. The world doesn’t stop spinning, though, it only slows. He takes a few steps towards the opening of the alley and almost ends up back on the ground. He grits his teeth against the tantalizing pull of gravity. 

Gradually but surely he makes his way out, drunkenly shuffling along. The streetlamp in front of the alley has conveniently burnt out and he squints around at his surroundings, lit by the residual light of the city, and tries to figure out just where the hell his is. After a few moments, it dawns on him. He’s _not_ ten blocks away at all––he’s eight. 

Bile rises up in his throat and he spits onto the curb. It is truly a loathsome and disgusting habit, but then again so is mugging people. Eight blocks. He leans against the metal trunk of the useless lamp. That’s all it is. Eight blocks. He staggers into the night. 

* * *

 

Somehow he ends up back at the brownstone. He’s not entirely sure how he managed to get there––he remembers being eight blocks away, but he can’t recall from which direction he came, north or south, or maybe they weren’t blocks at all, but avenues. His head pounds in protest whenever he tries to remember the street number. It’s a palpable pain. He closes his eyes and imagines how relieving it would be to unscrew his head from his shoulders, or to lift up some hinge on his skull and remove his aching, aching brain. 

The doorbell is still broken so he raises his fist to knock and notices that the skin on his knuckles is split. He raps against the door once, twice, three times, and waits. Almost immediately he hears the scraping sounds of the locks coming undone, almost as if Watson has been waiting by the door for his imminent arrival. A comforting, if unrealistic, thought.

“Did you really forget your keys––” she begins, then stops when details not so easily seen in the viewfinder of a peephole become clear: the blood on his shirt, the dirt on his face, the scrapes on his hands. Then her hand is wrapped around his upper arm, tugging him into the house, and she’s speaking at him quick and urgent, but her words are too fast and simply blend together. He staggers over the threshold, his knee buckling, and suddenly sags against her. He attempts to find his footing and together they make their way to the sofa. 

He collapses into the cushions and she says something about getting her medical kit. She’s gone for perhaps a minute, but her absence resonates deep. He leans his head back. He aches. 

A stupid _fucking_ mugging. 

“Sherlock, open your eyes.” Again, he hadn’t realized they had fallen shut. He obeys her command, and feels slightly betrayed when assaulted with a penlight.

“Don’t you know it’s rather rude to shine lights into the eyes of someone with a concussion?” He blinks away spots but his face is fixed in a grimace. He’s been concussed enough times before to recognize the symptoms: headache, confusion, dizziness, nausea. 

“I’m trying to make sure it’s _only_ a concussion,” she says, then takes his head in her hands. She feels all around his skull, cups his cranium in her palms, palpates his scalp with her fingertips. She grazes a spot towards the back and his whole brain lights up in pain. He cannot help the sharp breath he takes. “Tender?” she asks, voice a murmur, then sits back. “I didn’t feel any fractures, but you’ve got an impressive bump.” When he doesn’t answer, she tries again: “Sherlock, what happened?” Her voice has gone all light and cottony, thick with concern. He isn’t used to this tone being directed at him. He doesn’t think he likes it. 

She rifles through her medical kit while he contemplates his answer. He watches her tear open a foil packet and remove an antiseptic wipe. He allows her to take his hand in hers and brush the cloth against the torn up skin. It burns like it did when he first got the scrapes. “Was it the Kowalski’s?” She does the other hand, then turns it over and does his knuckles. “I didn’t think they’d make good on their threats. We should call the Captain and let him know.” 

“It wasn’t the Kowalski’s.” His tongue feels thick but he’s compelled to answer. “It was a white gentleman, about six feet and five inches tall, roughly two-hundred and thirty pounds, dark haired, with a black bandana tied across his nose and mouth and armed with a baseball bat.” He clears his throat. “He took my watch.” 

Watson pauses in her administerings and openly stares at him. He looks away, face burning, hands burning, eyes burning. “Were you _mugged_?”

“ _Yes_ , Watson, I believe I was.” He pulls his hands from her grasp and knots them into fists. His ’ _S’_ consonants are beginning to slur. He bites hard on the inside of his cheek, like that’ll help, but it really just adds to his mass of pain. 

“What else is bothering you?” She’s using that tone of voice again. He wants to vomit. “Beside your head and your hands. I saw your knee buckle when you came in, I should––I mean, do you want me to take a look? Or I could just get you some ice. Or––” She hesitates and gives him a not-so-subtle once-over. “Maybe we should go to the ER.”

He must look worse than he thinks he does. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why? You should really get checked out. They can give you something for the pain and make sure that your head is okay."

“I was under the impression you had already done so.”

“A physical examination isn’t foolproof, and you know that.” 

“Well, I assure you, if I begin to hemorrhage from my ears or my eyes you will be the first to know.” 

“Yeah, and if that happens it’ll be too late by then, Sherlock!” Gone is the quiet concern from earlier. She avoids his gaze and begins to ball up the scattered medical trash, wrapping up the foil and bloodied napkins in her blue latex gloves. “You should really take these things more seriously.” She looks down at the garbage, at his balled up hands, and stands up. “I can’t fix everything.” 

“I’m not asking you to fix everything.” His voice is quiet. He still can’t look at her.

“Sometimes, that’s how it feels.” She makes her way to the kitchen and he lets his eyes slide closed. He listens to the noises she makes as she moves, the sound of her person existing in the space: the creak of the floorboards under her slight weight, the suction of the refrigerator when its opened and closed, running water filling a glass, various containers clattering about. 

He feels like the cushions are pulling him downwards; he sinks deeper into the grasp with every passing second, and he willfully succumbs. His head still throbs something tangible, and he thinks that his pants around his knee might be getting tighter. 

“Here.”

He opens his eyes. Watson stands before him, two white oblongs in one hand, a glass of water in the other, and two deluxe sized bags of peas draped over the crook of her arm. “I think you have to cook those first.” He takes the Tylenol and drinks half the glass of water in a single gulp.

“They’re not for me.” She places one bag over his knee and hands him the other one. He stares at it a moment before pressing it against the back of his head like a grotesque excuse for a neck pillow. 

“Thank you,” he says, nearly sighing in relief. He’s dirty, smells like an alleyway, and is still dressed, but once more closes his eyes. 

“Don’t thank me yet,” she says. “I’ll be waking you up every two hours to make sure you don’t fall into a coma.”

He almost smiles.


End file.
